Can MCU’s Sentry Destroy the Marvel Universe? His Powers Explained

Spoiler note: this covers the ending and post-credits scene of Thunderbolts* (2025), plus Siege (2010) and What If? #200 (2011).

In the comics, effectively yes. What If? #200 (2011) shows the Void wiping out Earth’s heroes after Norman Osborn wins the Siege of Asgard. The MCU’s Sentry is weaker on paper, with the power of 1,000 exploding suns instead of a million, but Thunderbolts* still made him the strongest hero the MCU has introduced. He is in the cast of Avengers: Doomsday, out December 18, 2026.

Updated October 23, 2026

Before Thunderbolts hit theaters, I honestly thought Marvel would tone down Sentry’s powers. Most of us expected a watered-down version of the comic book powerhouse. Boy, were we wrong!

What we got instead was a Sentry with abilities that somehow manage to surpass even his comic counterpart in some ways. Remember when Val claimed he was created to be more powerful than the combined Avengers team? That wasn’t just typical MCU hyperbole, this version of Sentry actually packs that level of punch.

Here’s what makes Sentry so fascinating: when he’s good, he truly embodies hope and optimism, but when his dark side emerges? Pure, walking havoc.

The Kryptonian-Level Battles We Deserved

Remember watching Man of Steel and being blown away by those Kryptonian battles? The ultra-high speeds, the devastating punches that made you feel the impact through the screen? Marvel fans like me have been asking, “Why can’t we get fights like that?”

Well, Thunderbolts finally delivered. Sentry fights exactly like that, blistering speeds, seemingly invincible, and creating shockwaves that could level mountains just by falling from the sky. The visuals were everything we’ve been craving.

But here’s the kicker: on paper, the MCU dialed Sentry down by a factor of a thousand. Thunderbolts* gives him the power of 1,000 exploding suns, while the comics say a million.

Cosmic Power in Perspective

Does this power downgrade actually matter? Honestly, not at all.

Let’s get nerdy for a second. Our sun puts out roughly 10^44 joules over its whole ten-billion-year life. Take the film’s line literally, multiply by a thousand, and you’re in cosmic-tier territory.

In MCU terms, that puts Sentry in a different league from Captain Marvel, at least on paper. Carol in binary form channels star-level energy; Sentry is pitched as a thousand stars going off at once.

What Happened When Sentry Lost Control in Siege?

So is Sentry really stronger than the entire Avengers team combined, even with powerhouses like Hulk and Thor? To answer this question, we need to look at what happens when Sentry completely loses it.

The “Siege” storyline fundamentally altered the Marvel Universe. After Secret Invasion (sound familiar, MCU fans?), Norman Osborn assembled his team and laid siege to Asgard. Classic Osborn wanted to look like humanity’s savior, and Loki, being Loki, manipulated him into believing conquering Asgard would cement his authority.

In Siege (2010), by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, Osborn sends Sentry at Asgard. He tears Ares in half, the Void takes over, and Asgard falls out of the sky. It takes the combined heroes, and finally Thor, at Bob’s own pleading, to end it.

But what if nobody had stopped him? That’s where things get truly terrifying.

Can Sentry Destroy the Universe? The What If? Story

What If? #200 (2011), written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Dave Wilkins, asks what happens if Osborn wins the Siege of Asgard. It starts earlier: Ares figures out Osborn lied to him and goes for him, and Sentry kills Ares on the spot. With his strongest rival gone and time to recover, Sentry walks into the siege at full strength.

From there it’s a massacre. The heroes fall one after another, morale breaks, and reinforcements don’t change the outcome. When Bob loses himself completely, the Void takes over for good, and Earth goes down with him.

That’s the comics’ answer to the question people search for. In main continuity, something always stops him. Take away whatever stops him, and the Void wins.

MCU Sentry: The Power Set That Breaks the Rules

But is the MCU’s Sentry as powerful as his comic counterpart? Not exactly, he’s potentially even more dangerous because he has the comic Sentry’s powers PLUS some terrifying extras.

Thunderbolts showed Sentry with the standard power set from the Golden Sentry Serum: super strength, speed, invulnerability, flight, the usual superhero package. But then they added telepathic abilities and telekinesis, which takes things to another level.

The most shocking addition? The Void’s reality-warping abilities. That’s what makes him truly game-breaking.

Characters at Sentry’s tier usually win with brute strength. MCU Bob has something nastier. Touch him at your lowest and you fall into the Void, trapped inside the memory you’re most ashamed of. Director Jake Schreier calls these the shame rooms, and the film walks us through Yelena’s, Walker’s and Val’s.

In the Watchtower fight scene, Sentry repeatedly used telekinesis, something he doesn’t have in the comics. Comic Sentry excels at molecular manipulation, but the MCU gave him telekinesis instead, which is arguably more versatile.

And the Void’s darkness doesn’t just kill. It turns people into shadows and folds them into that loop, which is closer to Darkseid’s Omega Sanction in DC Comics than to any punch. It isn’t defeating an enemy. It’s sentencing them to relive their worst day.

Why Did Sentry Become the Void?

In the film, Bob Reynolds is a volunteer in O.X.E.’s Sentry program, Val’s attempt to build a hero she owns. The serum works, but it also gives shape to everything Bob hates about himself, and that becomes the Void. Schreier has described Thunderbolts* as a Marvel movie about depression, and the Void is what that looks like with superpowers.

In the comics, the Void has been part of Bob from the start: the same power, the dark half of the same man. For the long version, see our Sentry character guide.

How Did the Thunderbolts Beat Sentry?

Not with a punch. Yelena walks into the Void, the rest of the team follows, and together they pull Bob through his shame rooms and out the other side. The film ends with them standing next to him instead of fighting him, before Val rebrands the whole group as the New Avengers at a press conference.

Can Sentry Control the Void?

Not reliably. In the comics, Bob has tried therapy, isolation and even making the whole world forget he exists, and the Void always comes back, because it is him. The MCU ends on a hopeful note, with Bob on a team that knows what he is, but it never claims the Void is gone.

What Sentry Means for the MCU’s Future

On paper, Sentry is the strongest hero the MCU has introduced, stronger than Hulk or Thor, and the film makes a point of it.

Lewis Pullman is in the announced cast for Avengers: Doomsday, and the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene sets the New Avengers up for what comes next, with a ship arriving from another universe. Whether the Void gets loose against Doctor Doom is the big open question. We ran that matchup in our Sentry vs Doctor Doom breakdown, and ranked the Doom he’d be facing in every major version of Doctor Doom.

In the comics, the Sentry’s last big fight ended badly: Knull killed him in King in Black (2020).

Sentry and the Void FAQ

Our Take

The MCU didn’t need a million suns. It needed the Void to be about something, and tying it to Bob’s self-loathing is why this version works. Doomsday just has to resist turning him back into a power level.